14ymedio, Madrid, 24 January 2024 — After Calabria, another Italian region will receive a group of Cuban doctors soon. According to the Sardinian press, 128 doctors and 30 nurses will arrive in Sardinia very soon – without specifying a date – since the permits are about to be delivered. At the moment, the financial content of the contract, which ends on December 31, 2025, has not been revealed and contains a clause for an eventual renewal.
The news was disseminated a few days ago by the media L’Unione Sarda, to whom the regional Minister of Health, Carlo Doria, confirmed that Cubans are currently receiving Italian lessons. The measure provides a solution to the urgent lack of medical personnel on the largest island in the Mediterranean.
The agreement, concluded at the Cuban Embassy in Rome between the Doria municipal government and Cuban Minister of Health José Ángel Portal Miranda, responds to months of demands from the inhabitants of Sardinia, in particular the SOS Barbagia-Mandrolisai committee.
The collective is named after two regions located in the center of Sardinia, where the lack of doctors is more noticeable than in the two large tourist areas of the country, the north (with the exclusive Emerald Coast) and the south, where Cagliari, the capital, is located. Outside these two privileged areas – where the public healthcare network also does not have a large endowment – the shortage is alarming.
According to data from December, there are only three emergency doctors, who cannot cover the calls
According to data from December, there are only three emergency doctors, who cannot cover all the calls, and the ambulances do not have any doctors on board. In one of the health centers, the head of emergency is moving soon, leaving the place with only one permanent and three temporary doctors; that is, four of the seven that should be there. Surgeries are in danger, workers warn, having already been limited to being performed only four days a week, and with only two radiologists, it is impossible to cover holidays and vacations.
In addition, the air ambulance does not work at night either. It’s an essential transport on a very undeveloped island with precarious roads that triple the time to travel long distances.
“There is very little left of what was there a few years ago,” Manuel Tanda, head of a medical center in the area, said last month. “The situation is aggravated by the fact that 118 (emergency) operates without doctors and the air ambu